


I Knock On Your Skin

by labicheramure



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Abduction, Bathing/Washing, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Hand Jobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-19
Updated: 2013-11-19
Packaged: 2018-01-02 01:42:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1051060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labicheramure/pseuds/labicheramure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wished she would stop talking. It was too much, the calm way she spoke, the terrible nothing in her white-blue eyes. He wanted to hit her. If they were fighting, he thought, it would be better, she would come to life, she would talk for real instead of giving all this cryptic bullshit. He wanted to bite her hand. Instead, Eren just lay there, helpless, choking on his questions as she turned back to fill him with the emptiness of her gaze.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Knock On Your Skin

Eren awoke to blinding pain in his shoulders, rolling over only to make it worse, the hurt shooting down his arm and into his clenching fists. He tried to brace himself enough to sit up, vision blurring with pain until he gave up and fell back on his back. The floor he lay on was hard, the scent of damp wood mixed in with the smell of tracked-in dirt. He could see orange shadows dancing on the low ceiling above him, could feel the heat of the close fire at his left. Unconsciously, he tried to curl a little closer to it, the warmth a balm for his sticky-wet skin.

"You shouldn't move, you know," came a voice from his other side, low and tired and far too familiar.

"Annie..." His voice cracked a little, strange to his own ears. Looking over, he saw her, seated on a worn rug, a faded red quilt wrapped around her shoulders, making her seem small and so very pale.

"I dislocated your shoulders. The muscles have probably already healed back in that place. It'll just hurt, if you move your arms."

He tested it, tried to reach toward her, a sharp, insistent ache filling his whole arm until he let it fall, grimacing. He thought he saw Annie smile a little as she stood up, took the blanket off her shoulder, and draped it over him. She kneeled next to him with an expression he'd never seen on her before, tired and gentle and cruel all at once. And worse, he was beginning to realize where else he saw it.

"I should've known you'd do that. Do you feel better now?"

"Why?" Eren asked softly, staring up into her face, at the lines around her eyes, the way her loose hair fell around it. "Annie, why are you here?"

"You're a little scary when you're angry, you know," she said, looking away from him, at the door, rain beating against its weathered wood. "Running around like an animal. I thought you would have learned to stop running into things so hard by now."

He wished she would stop talking. It was too much, the calm way she spoke, the terrible nothing in her white-blue eyes. He wanted to hit her. If they were fighting, he thought, it would be better, she would come to life, she would talk for real instead of giving all this cryptic bullshit. He wanted to bite her hand. Instead, Eren just lay there, helpless, choking on his questions as she turned back to fill him with the emptiness of her gaze.

"You're tired, Eren. You should go back to sleep."

"Hurts." His voice was growing weaker, his throat blocked by his pain and yes, his weariness. "Too much to sleep."

She sighed, as if he were only being petulant. Standing again, Annie moved to prod at the fire, her shadow long and cold over his body.

"Lay there and suffer, then."

She faced her body firmly away from him, prodding at the fire, stirring up hot ash that swirled and made furious sparks in his chest. Eren braced his elbows on the floor, hearing and feeling the crack and tear of newly-formed muscle as he rolled over and dragged himself into a sitting position. He grasped her white arm like a blade handle, yanking her toward him, forcing her to look at him. Her wide, startled eyes were the most honest expression she'd ever given him.

"Is that really the only thing you have to say to me?" He said, quiet, and how his throat ached when he spoke, how his eyes stung, watching her freeze her old expression back in place. Just talk to me, he begged with his grip on her, steam rising from beneath his fingers. Say something horrible, just say something.

"That hurts," she said softly. He laughed, cruel to his own ears. 

"My shoulders hurt." 

She hummed, conceding. That was the only warning Eren got before he was slammed back to the floor, her knee planted firmly in his stomach, hard nails digging into his wrist to force him to release her. He caught sight of her arm, briefly, as she twisted both of his to pin them to his sides. It was bright red, all around. 

Panting there on the floor, he was forced into stillness, high of anger fading into the burn of torn muscle, overstressed bone. Her bony knee pressed into his diaphragm, squeezing air out of him as he stared up at her, willing her to, just this once, say what she means. Annie leaned over him, her face close, her chapped, bitten lips parted, breathing him in.

"You smell," she said. Her eyes were pointed at his neck, avoiding his eyes with steady resilience. "That's my fault, isn't it? I got all that nasty spit on you."

He shivered, cold and wet, the smell of the inside of her mouth fading but present, that stink of death that even now made him want to turn and vomit.

"There's a bathtub here." Annie released him and stood. "After sunset I'll fix your arms and heat you up some water."

"Why after sunset?"

"Well," she said, pulling a lock of hair behind her ear. "I just assumed that even you're not stupid enough to go running away through Titan territory in the rain at night. Was I wrong?"

Eren fell silent, considering, for the first time, the terror of his situation. She was right, there was no way he was getting out tonight, probably not in the morning either. He thought of the calmly brutal way she had snatched soldiers from the air, her eyes never leaving him even as she threw their corpses aside. He had always believed he wasn't afraid of death, but that was only because he knew there were things worse than dying. And he didn't know, now, which of those things Annie might be willing to do.

"Hey, Annie?" he asked, quiet, careful. "Why did you take me?"

Her face froze, for a moment. She had the end of her oversized, untucked shirt clutched in her fists, twisting it with white knuckles and red fingers.

"Would you have come? If I asked you to?"

Her eyes were strange, bright. There was hint of a smile at her lips, almost a laugh, but the sick, unpleasant kind, like his answer was gonna tear her up, either way. What she said was a diversion, not an answer to his question at all, but he couldn't not be honest, and she knew that.

"That's deserting. You get shot for that."

She did laugh. It was the worst sound he ever heard, mirthless and hysterical, with a note of pain he couldn't understand or forget.

"Of course," she said, voice so, so soft. "Of course."

\----

When sunset came she was true to her word, sitting him up and pulling his shoulders back into place with a pop that Eren swore he could hear. She ordered him not to move his arms while she was gone, then went into the adjacent kitchen to heat the water. With nowhere to escape, the steam of his healing muscles turned his shoulders a nasty boiled red, tender and sore when he settled into a worn armchair to watch the rain cut thin rivers through five years worth of dust on the window. Already it was so dark he could barely make out the overgrown path to the door, much less where it led. Closing his eyes, he let out a long, long breath.

He wondered where his anger had gone. Before it lit him up so badly it hurt, made him near sick with the force of it. Now he watched Annie's shadow in the doorway to the kitchen and felt nothing but a terrible, vast emptiness, as if she had drained all his caring out of him. All the questions buzzing in his head felt like so much thin air in the face of the truth; of all the death, the pain, scouts' cracking bones and his cracking shoulders.

"Are you hungry?" 

Annie was carrying a large copper pot, steam rising from its jostled lid as she set it down. Her eyes swept over him from the top of the window to his bare feet, never once meeting his gaze. He shook his head.

"I found some pickled cucumbers," she said, looking at him with an oddly sincere kind of openness. "There's a lot, but that's all that's in there. If you want to starve, though, I guess that's fine."

"What about you?"

"I don't like cucumbers."

That was stupid. He wanted to tell her that, but she was hefting the pot back up again, balancing it on her hip. Boiling water sloshed out and ran down the sides, across her hand, leaving fading red lines in their wake. Eren realized he didn't know if the steam rising from her skin was from the water, or from healing. He didn't know why it would matter, but he knew it had to hurt, carrying a pot of boiling water like that. He heard her pour it into the tin tub, watched her come back through, pot held carelessly at her side. Her palms were bright red. 

"Doesn't that hurt?" 

But Annie was already in the kitchen. He imagined her filling the pot at the pump, struggling, maybe, to get it to release water after being out of use so long. If he were in there she would be complaining, he was sure, asking, with that too-meaningful sarcasm, if her husband required anything else. Thinking the word made him pause for a moment, turning it over, feeling it out. Mama used to draw baths for his father when he came home from long trips, helping him wash while Eren played jacks with himself. He wouldn't do a good enough job on his own, Mama always said. Annie would say the same thing. 

He watched her go and fill the tub a second time. Her hands were almost too warm, pulling him out of his chair, her forearms nearly as red as her palms. The ache in his shoulders was nearly gone, the muscles nearly healed, but there was still enough for the pain to startle him into awareness, as she held on to his hand and pulled him into the bathroom. It was dark. There were candles on the windowsill, strong-smelling tallow rooted directly to the wood, making their shadows into giants against the shutters. She turned up a dimming lantern, setting it on the table next to the tub, glass fogged by rising steam. She stared at him, expectantly.

"What?"

Annie grabbed his arms, forcing them above his head so she could pull his shirt from his waistband and yank it up over his head. He struggled briefly, tried to put them back down, but she pinched his side and made him hold still while she finished getting it off. She must have removed his jacket and gear before  
he woke up, Eren thought, noticing for the first time the absence of familiar weight and pressure. He shivered, thinking of her small hands, reaching between his legs to unbuckle the straps at his thighs. 

"Are you going to make me take off your pants too?" she asked. "That's a little indecent, don't you think?"

"You're gonna see me naked anyway." But he was already unbuttoning, directing his gaze firmly away from her. He felt like he was in a dream, dropped in a strange, humiliating situation and responding like he was fine with it. Walking himself through it, he didn't think he could understand how he got here. All he knew was the cruel, unknowable heat of Annie's gaze, the way she wet her lips when he finished awkwardly pulling his clothes off. She used to do the same thing when they were sparring, betraying her excitement in the seconds before she dropped him neatly into the dirt. Climbing into the tub at her silent urging, he felt like the foolish rabbit, climbing into the fox's soup pot.

"How is it?" He shrugged, wincing when he hit his healing shoulder on the side of the tub.

"It's- shit! It's fine."

Kneeling with grace that seemed too delicate for someone like her, Annie dipped her fingers in. Her palm was still a little pink.

"Really? I think it's too hot." Eren stared at her incredulously. 

"You didn't think the pot was too hot." 

"I couldn't find an oven mitt," she said, swirling her finger around the water thoughtfully. "Do you mind if I join you?"

"What?" His mouth was way too dry, for how humid it was. He thought he caught a smile in her eyes as she briefly looked back up at him.

"I was just thinking about how much of a pain it would be to heat another bath for myself. And I am so tired already, I could very well fall asleep right now."

It felt like a trick, but he nodded anyway, scooting back a bit to allow her room in the small tub. Eren watched in rapt silence as she pulled off her gear straps and jacket, setting them neatly aside before following them with her hooded sweatshirt and pants. Her undershirt was different from the underbodice Mikasa always wore. It was tight, made of thin, soft material, the shape and color of her breasts showing clearly through it. She stared at him as she took it off, a challenge, her eyes consuming his body as his eyes devoured hers. It was obscene, he thought, but terribly familiar, as her body was nothing but a softer, smaller copy of the Female Titan's. As if Annie had simply decided to become a larger, more grotesque version of herself. It was just like her, to do that.

"How disgusting," she said as she sat down. 

"Huh?"

"You're hard." She reached under the water to push his knees apart, revealing his reddening arousal. Eren could only stare, helplessly, willing himself not to shiver at her delicate touch.

"You're naked," he offered. Her hand slid down his thigh, squeezing, kneading at the muscle, as if testing for weaknesses. When she came to the sensitive juncture of his leg and pelvis, she dug her nails in, and he could not stop his mouth from falling open in a strange, low moan. 

"You want me to touch it?" Her eyes were bright, alive, twin needles eager to put holes in him. She had the same look in combat practice when she had him on the ground, at once cruel and joyful in the purest, most innocent of ways. It should have frightened him. Annie should frighten him. Instead, he found himself nodding, smiling, wickedly glad as she was.

She kissed him on the cheek before she lay her hand on him. It was such an oddly sweet, vulnerable gesture, coming from her, that it caught him off guard, in the moments before she plunged her hand underwater to touch him. She was rough, efficient, and focused, curious enough for him to know this was the first time she'd done something like this. Eren found himself glad at that, but he didn't allow himself to pursue the reasons why. Her other hand was tangled in his hair, curled into a fist, as if holding him in place. 

"I'm not...going anywhere, you know," he said softly, pulling her hand away. Annie looked up at him as if startled, her thumb frozen on the head of his cock, pressed in almost painfully. There was something awful and naked in her eyes, like what he had seen and not noticed in the forest, too blinded by grief and rage. He swallowed, looking away.

"You don't know that."

\----

There was only one bed in the cabin, old and worn with a straw mattress leaking out the side, but he and Annie piled blankets on it until they couldn't feel anything but threadbare cotton. She didn't put her clothes back on, insisting it was too hot, but he saw her shiver as he pulled his shirt and underwear back on. Her hair was still a wet, dark yellow halo around her face, making her seem small, delicate in a way that he knew so well she was not. He left his pants off when they crawled into bed, pulling a moth-eaten fleece over the both of them as a roll of thunder shook the tiny cabin.

“Hey, Annie?” She rolled over to face him, languid eyes opening slowly, still bright from before. 

“Yeah?”

“What-” He swallowed, gathered his thoughts. “What's going to happen, now? Where are we going from here?”  
Annie was quiet for a long, long moment. Later, Eren would remember the wetness clinging to her eyelashes, and wonder if it was water or tears.

“Home,” she said. “We're going home.”


End file.
